So I was making a song mix for a friend of mine, all stuff from the nineties. I would say “mix tape,” which is obsolete, but I was actually making a CD, which is also obsolete. And then Chris Cornell died.

I hadn’t planned to put any Soundgarden on the mix – I sold my only Soungarden album, Superunknown, for grocery money back during the Lean Times of 2008 – 2013. Nevertheless, that’s a classic album and I love the way they play together.

They played really well together. I never made the effort to see them; I think I missed something pretty special. This is an ongoing problem for me. I keep not seeing bands, and then someone dies and that’s it. Rule of thumb – if you like a band’s album, go see them live!

Audioslave, too. Another really good bunch of players. We lost a terrific musician.

My thoughts are with his family and friends during this time.

An album that did make the mix (and also survived the Lean Times, the Great Purge, the Hurricane, and all sorts of recession-related adventures) is Lucious Jackson’s Natural Ingredients.

I clearly liked the album enough to hang on to it, but don’t remember liking it as much as I do now. I may have been burned out on music a little at the time. I used to work in radio, and listened to as much new music as I could. But these days I’m not inundated with music anymore. I have a chance to step back a little, and revisit albums that I heard but maybe didn’t listen to.

The nineties was when you started seeing women in bands who weren’t just lead singers. Nothing against lead singers – I have been one frequently. But we also play guitar and bass and drums, and produce albums and haul gear.

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of very silly conversations with beered-up guys about how I can possibly manage to play the bass without a penis. So I love that now it’s not even an issue.

 

 

Image courtesy of pexels.com